


Good First Impressions

by lionheartedghost



Series: Brighter Days [3]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Family Dinner, Fluff and Angst, Meeting the Parents, only a little bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:20:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21708865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionheartedghost/pseuds/lionheartedghost
Summary: “So, your parents hate me.”Buck looked up as Chim sank into the firehouse couch beside him. “What happened?”“They told me I’m not good for Maddie,” Chim scrubbed a hand down the side of his face, “so that was a great car journey. Forty minutes on the highway. In silence. With my girlfriend’s parents. Whohateme.”Chimney’s first meeting with Mr and Mrs Buckley doesn’t go too well. Buck takes it upon himself to fix things.
Relationships: Maddie Buckley/Howie "Chimney" Han
Series: Brighter Days [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1560778
Comments: 9
Kudos: 171





	Good First Impressions

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to maddiehans on Tumblr for prompting "Chimney meets Maddie’s parents for the first time and it doesn’t go very well". They asked for angst and this didn't get particularly angsty; I'm big on happy endings at the moment.

Chim wasn’t exactly sure how he’d ended up here.  
  
No, that wasn’t true. He knew exactly how he’d ended up here. Mr and Mrs Buckley - Roger and Sarah, if he was lucky - had finally managed to save up the money and book off the time to fly out to LA and visit their kids, and that was great. He couldn’t wait to meet them. Buck would pick them up from the airport and drop them at their hotel and they’d all meet for dinner in the evening. Perfect.  
  
Except Buck had mixed up his days and wasn’t actually free to pick them up after all. But it was fine. Everything was fine.  
  
“It’s my day off; we’ll go get them together,” Chim had shrugged, and Maddie had smiled and asked if he was sure, then asked if he was _really_ sure, and finally thrown her arms around his neck. All completely, one hundred percent fine.  
  
In Maddie’s defence, she couldn’t have predicted she’d be called into work at the last minute to help cover in the midst of a sickness bug. But she and Buck had promised someone would be there to meet their parents from arrivals, and Mr and Mrs Buckley would hardly have a good first impression of him if he left them to get an Uber. And that was still fine. Absolutely fine. Chim would pick them up. He wasn’t nervous about it at all.  
  
“Should I make a sign with their name on?” Chim had asked, sitting on the edge of the bed as he watched Maddie get ready for work. “Do people do that? They don’t, do they? But what if they don’t know it’s me? What if I don’t know it’s them?”  
  
“You’ll know it’s them,” Maddie had promised. Chim hadn’t known how she could be so sure that he _would_ know them on sight, but now, as the passengers from the latest arrival began to trickle through the gate, he saw what she had meant.  
  
There was no mistaking who the couple steadily making their way through the airport were. The woman had Maddie’s nose, Maddie’s chin, Maddie’s _walk_ even, only with the same blue eyes as Buck to offset it. The man was almost the polar opposite: Buck’s jaw, a few inches shy of Buck’s height, but Maddie’s eyes behind wire-framed glasses. This had to be them.  
  
Chim straightened, cleared his throat, and awkwardly waved a hand. “Mr and Mrs Buckley?”  
  
They came to a stop in front of him, their suitcase wheels squeaking a little on the tiled flooring. Mr Buckley looked him carefully up and down. “Mr Han?”  
  
“Call me Chimney,” he smiled. “Everyone else does. Can I take your bags?”  
  
Mrs Buckley smiled hesitantly. “Thank you, Chimney.”  
  
“No problem.” He took the case from her, glancing across at Mr Buckley. They locked eyes briefly; Chim smiled politely, took that as a quiet refusal of his help, and led them out to his car.  
  
“So, Chimney,” Mr Buckley straightened in the front seat as Chim pulled out of the parking space, “how long have you and Maddie been together?”  
  
“Oh, uh,” Chim tapped his fingers absently against the steering wheel, “maybe a year?”  
  
“Maybe a year?” Mrs Buckley repeated from the backseat. “How will you know when your anniversary is?”  
  
“We didn’t start dating officially. It just sorta happened,” Chim admitted with a crooked smile. “It was actually Buck- uh, Evan, who pointed it out to us. Maddie was still moving on from Doug... still _is_ moving on from Doug... and I didn’t want to rush her into anything.”  
  
“I’m glad you’ve said that, Chimney, because that makes this a little easier.” Mr Buckley adjusted his glasses. “We don’t think it’s good for Maddie to be in another relationship so soon after what she went through.”  
  
Chim blinked. “Uh... sorry?”  
  
“You said it yourself,” Mrs Buckley said, her voice gentle. “She’s still moving on from it. She _will be_ moving on from it for some time. We don’t think that another relationship right now is good for her.”  
  
There was silence but for the clicking sound of the indicator. Chim turned the car onto the highway.  
  
“Well,” he said slowly, “ _I_ think that Maddie is an adult who can make her own decisions.”  
  
The car was quiet after that.

*

“So, your parents hate me.”

Buck looked up as Chim sank into the firehouse couch beside him. “What happened?”

“They told me I’m not good for Maddie,” Chim scrubbed a hand down the side of his face, “so that was a great car journey. Forty minutes on the highway. In silence. With my girlfriend’s parents. Who _hate_ me.”

Buck frowned. “They said that?”

“They think it’s too soon after…” Chim sighed, “you know, Doug and everything. I told them Maddie was an adult and she could make her own decisions and it got a little frosty.”

Buck delved in his pocket and pulled out his phone. “I’ll talk to them.”

“No!” Chim snatched the phone away, holding it out of reach. “No, nope, no, not happening, not a _chance_.”

“Chim, come on-”

“Yeah, because getting my girlfriend’s little brother to call his parents and stick up for me is really gonna make them like me.”

“It will!” Buck made a grab for his phone; Chimney stood, putting the table between them. “Chimney. Let me talk to them, otherwise dinner’s gonna be-”

“Oh God,” Chim paused. “I can’t go to dinner with them. I’ll come up with something to tell Maddie. I’ll say I’m sick.”

“I’ll tell her you’re faking.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Buck raised his eyebrows. “You think so?”

“Buck, come on, man. Don’t do this to me.”

“Don’t do this to _her_ ,” Buck replied. “Maddie loves you. She wants you there. You can’t avoid them forever.”

The alarms rang overhead. Reluctantly, Chim tossed Buck’s phone back to him.

“Don’t call them,” he said, watching Buck retreat down the stairs. “Buck, I mean it.”

Buck climbed onto the truck without so much as looking back.

*

Buck shifted uncomfortably in the driver’s seat, watching as the traffic lights held at a steady red. His mom had taken the passenger seat; he could feel her eyes on him, scrutinising him carefully, just like she had been ever since he’d shown up to collect them from their hotel.

“Honey, you’re looking skinny.”

“I lost weight while I was off work. My captain and his wife keep giving me extra meals to make up for it. I’m fine, mom, really.” The lights turned green; Buck eased the car forwards.

“You’re quiet.”

“I’m driving. Focusing on the road.”

“Evan,” he could see his dad trying to catch his eye in the rearview mirror, “what is it?”

Buck sighed. “How did it go with Chim earlier?”

His dad paused. “He asked you to talk to us, did he?”

“No, Dad, he asked me _not_ to talk to you. He thinks you hate him and now he doesn’t even want to come to dinner with you.”

“We don’t hate him,” his mom insisted. “We just want your sister to be okay. We don’t want anyone taking advantage of her.”

“Chimney is the last guy who would ever take advantage of Maddie. He loves her, and she loves him. If you’d seen them together you’d know that. Maddie’s happy. You can’t just finally show up and take over her life because you think you know best.”

“Evan,” his mom began, hesitant, “we know we should have been here for you the last few months, should have been here for Maddie when that horrible ordeal happened-”

“Mom, I’m not mad at you for not being here. Money is tight. You’ve both got jobs you can’t just abandon. LA is a long way away. We get that, and we love you. But that doesn’t mean that when you _can_ come and see us you can start trying to order everybody around, and it _especially_ doesn’t mean you can mess up what Maddie and Chimney have, because he’s a great guy and Maddie deserves someone like him. And you know what, I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up getting married one day, and I kinda hope they _do_ , because they _both_ deserve to be happy. You need to apologise to Chim. You need to make this right.”

He watched in the mirror as his dad took off his glasses and polished the lenses against his shirt. “He must be a good guy if that’s the way you talk about him. You hated Doug.”

“Chim is nothing like Doug.”

“Good,” his mom said, so softly he almost didn’t hear her. “Okay. We’ll fix it.”

Buck nodded. “Good.”

*

“Are you okay?” Maddie sent Chim a puzzled smile, watching him fold and unfold his napkin in his lap.

“Hmm?” Chim dropped the napkin, wiping his palms on his pants. “Yeah, I’m great. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You’ve been off since before we left the apartment.” She studied him carefully. “Did something happen with my mom and dad earlier?”

“What? No, of course not.” Chim sipped at the glass of water in front of him.

“Okay,” Maddie sounded unconvinced, but she let it drop. She stood up suddenly. “Here they are.”

Chim stood hesitantly beside her as Buck came into view, holding the door of the restaurant open to let his parents pass through.

“Mom,” Maddie beamed, stepping forwards to hug her parents. “Dad. How was your flight?”

“Long, but worth it,” Mr Buckley laughed tiredly, taking the seat opposite Chim. Buck took the seat between them, looking discreetly between the two.

“Chimney,” Mrs Buckley smiled politely across the table at him as she sat down opposite Maddie. “Nice to see you again.”

“Mrs Buckley,” he nodded at her. “Mr Buckley.”

Maddie pursed her lips.

“Roger and Sarah is fine, Chimney,” Roger shook his head. “No need for formalities.”

Maddie seemed to visibly relax. The corners of Chim’s mouth twitched into a brief smile, but he couldn’t quite wipe the skepticism from his face. He glanced across at Buck; Buck purposefully avoided meeting his eyes.

They’d made it as far as the entrée before Roger Buckley spoke to Chim again. He looked across at his wife, acknowledged the pointed look Buck was giving them both, and finally cleared his throat. “Chimney, I… I think Sarah and I owe you an apology for earlier.”

Maddie stopped eating, her fork stilling in her hand. “Why? What happened earlier?” She turned accusingly towards Chim. “I knew something was wrong.”

Chim sighed, looking at Buck with resignation. “I told you not to call them.”

Buck shrugged. “I didn’t. I talked to them in the car.”

“It shouldn’t have taken a lecture from Evan for us to be open to giving you a chance.” Sarah smiled fondly at her son before reaching across the table to take hold of Chim’s hand; he let her, albeit with his brow furrowing in surprise. “Chimney, if you make Maddie happy, and if you’re as good a man as Evan says you are, then that’s good enough for me.”

“Mom, what did you say to him earlier?” Maddie set her fork down.

“We got a little overprotective,” Roger admitted with a grimace. “We want you to be okay, and after what happened with…” he shook his head in lieu of speaking the name aloud, “we maybe jumped the gun a little.”

“I know you worry,” Maddie said carefully, “but I’m an adult. I’m old enough to decide for myself who I want in my life.”

“That’s what Chimney said, and Evan. And they’re right. You’re all right.” Roger leant forwards in his chair, hands clasped together on the table. “We haven’t been there for you,” he glanced at Buck, “for _either_ of you like we should have, and coming into town and taking over like that… we were trying to make up for it. We shouldn’t have, and we’re sorry.”

Sarah squeezed Chim’s hand. “We’d like to start again, if that’s okay?”

Chim smiled. He freed his hand from her grip and offered her his right instead. “Hi, I’m Chimney. It’s nice to meet you.”

She laughed. “Sarah Buckley.”

“Roger,” Mr Buckley shook his hand next, giving him a grateful nod. “So, Chim, tell us about yourself. You’re at the 118 with Evan, right?”

“Yeah, we’ve got a good team.” He smirked. “Buck’s not bad either, I guess.”

Buck rolled his eyes. “Chim, come on, tell them something interesting. Tell them about the rebar.”

“Now? While we’re eating?”

“The rebar?” Roger asked, intrigued.

“Yeah, maybe not while we’re eating,” Maddie laughed, picking up her fork again. Chim met Roger’s eyes and tapped knowingly at the fading red mark in the middle of his forehead.

“Huh,” Roger snorted, half in awe, half in disbelief. “You guys really go through it, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Buck said, shovelling food into his mouth, “but we’re still here.”

“Yeah,” Chim grinned, his gaze settling on Maddie. “We are.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed it, kudos and comments are always appreciated!


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